Is diversity shrinking within the media landscape?

In 2021 the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) launched the Te Rito Journalism Project, designed to boost diversity in New Zealand's newsrooms.

By Susana Suisuiki of RNZ

What does the future hold for aspiring Māori and Pacific journalists who have graduated with the required skills, only to find the opportunities in mainstream media have gone?

In 2021, the Public Interest Journalism Fund (PIJF) launched the Te Rito Journalism Project, a $2.4 million initiative to increase diversity in newsrooms.

The initiative was in response to the decades-long shortage of Māori and Pacific journalists.

It was billed as New Zealand’s first “groundbreaking diverse voices cadetship scheme”, bringing in four media companies – NZME, Newshub, Whakaata Māori and Pacific Media Network (PMN) – to “identify, train, develop and hire” 25 cadet journalists.

The cadetship managed to roll out two year-long programmes, with the second cohort graduating last month at NZME.

However, as Newshub prepares to cease its news operations and TVNZ cuts local programming, is it still possible to make room in mainstream newsrooms for diverse voices?

Newshub will cease its news operations after July 5. Photo / Alex Burton

Susana Guttenbeil, general manager of content at Pacific Media Network and a former journalist, is optimistic.

“It has been short – it’s two years, the cohort, but I think really successful.

“So, of the two years, there were roughly about 34 people who completed the programme and about 12 of those were Pacific, and so we talk about the 1.8 per cent of Pacific journalists that make up the journalism industry here in New Zealand and we like to think those 12 people have now upped that to 2 per cent or more.”

More than 8 per cent of New Zealand’s population identifies as being of Pacific origin. But have all those graduates secured roles?

“As far as the last year’s cohort is concerned, I believe the majority of them have,” Guttenbeil says.

“And in this year’s cohort, I think one person has moved to Australia and is currently looking for work, but as I understand it there are a few opportunities that have just popped up recently for those cadets who are looking for work.”

So not really an unequivocal yes.

Guttenbeil adds that, before the emergence of the PIJF, the Pacific Media Network had long supported Pacific journalism as part of its trust deed. However, she says it’s “hard not to get mad” when bigger media outlets such as the ABC poach their rising stars.

John Utanga, producer and editor of long-running Pacific current affairs show Tagata Pasifika, says storytelling within mainstream media performs within a very “rigid structure” that may have put off indigenous storytellers from joining the industry.

“That’s why we go to journo school, that’s why we do all these communications degrees to bend our stories to the will of the structure that newsrooms around the country have been used to.”

However, Utanga believes the structure has loosened a little thanks to social media.

“Now, you can tell your own stories in the way that you like it in a format that’s readily digestible.”

As for story sovereignty, should stories and issues pertaining to Pasifika communities be reported only by Pasifika people?

Newsrooms should ‘do thorough checks’ before running Pasifika-related stories

Not necessarily, Utanga reckons.

“At the end of the day, it comes down to how informed a person is about an issue and in a perfect world, yes, a Pacific person with the right skill set and the right depth of knowledge would, you think, produce a story that would work at the time.

“But that’s not to say that other journalists can’t do it.”

Guttenbeil says newsrooms should do thorough checks before running a Pasifika-related story, should there be no Pacific reporters.

“As we’ve seen recently, with Teremoana Rapley, we see these stories that go out that are quite hurtful to people when their mana isn’t restored in the way that they intended the story to be told.”

Rapley, an award-winning musician, told the Sunday Star-Times during an interview that she was living with inoperable brain cancer. However, when other media picked up the story, her cancer was the headline. She later told PMN she was disgusted at the hyping of her illness for clicks.

Guttenbeil says you can see these things play out where the story starts in one place and becomes detrimental when retold on another platform.

With the demise of the PIJF and the Te Rito cadetship, she says it will always be a challenge to raise the number of Māori and Pacific journalists but she remains adamant that PMN will endeavour to increase those numbers.

“We will always continue to employ and train and to bring people into the industry but it’s hard enough doing it on our own.

“It’s not democratic if we’re not all equally represented at those levels, so even though PIJF has ended, we hope that government agencies out there will recognise the importance of ensuring that these communities continue to get a voice at the various levels that they need to be.”

The Detail also looks at the prioritisation of Pacific stories in mainstream media, and the importance of journalists advocating for them.

Find out how to listen to and follow The Detail here.

The Detail is produced by Newsroom for RNZ, and made possible by NZ on Air. Photo / RNZ

- RNZ